The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Tuesday, said “conducting isolated elections in Nigeria can be challenging.”
This was as he urged security agencies to provide a secure environment for the conduct of the rerun/by-elections scheduled for February 3.
The by-elections became necessary after some members of the national and state Houses of Assembly died.
Yakubu, speaking at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security on Tuesday in Abuja, said without a secure and peaceful environment, the conduct of credible elections would be imperiled.
He said a rerun conducted in one polling unit or a handful of polling units could be severely disrupted by acts of thuggery knowing full well that these few locations would determine the outcome of the election.
Yakubu said the Nigeria Police Force, as the lead agency for elections, had been provided with the full information of where the elections would be held and the number of Permanent Voter Cards collected, among others.
The INEC Chairman added that four additional orders of the Court of Appeal were served to the commission bringing the total number of affected national and state constituencies to 39 where elections would be held.
